cigarjoe

The Crooked Way (1949) The Most Graphic Noir (SLWB February 06, 2012 republished Noirsville 9/19/2017) John Alton's chiaroscuro cinematography imparts upon The Crooked Way what could arguably be the most Graphic Novel look to a Classic Film Noir. Director Robert Florey (The Vicious Years (1950), Johnny One-Eye (1950), segued into TV early did some Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zones and Outer Limits), Director of Photography was Master Cinematographer John Alton (about fourteen Classic Noir to his scorecard). Music was by Louis Forbes. The film stars John Payne (Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Larceny (1948), Kansas City Confidential (1952), 99 River Street (1953), Slightly Scarlet (1956), Hidden Fear (1957)), Sonny Tufts (No Escape (1953), Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955)), Ellen Drew (Johnny O'Clock (1947)), Rhys Williams (Nightmare (1956)), Percy Helton (nine Classic Noir), and John Doucette (eight Classic Film Noir), Ester Howard (Murder, My Sweet (1944), Detour (1945), Born to Kill (1947), No Man of Her Own (1950), Caged (1950)), Frank Cady, Charles Evans, who also had some Noir on their curriculum vitae. Cady I just watched the other day in The Asphalt Jungle. Eddie Rice (Payne) Eddie Rice (Payne), wakes up in a San Francisco Veterans Hospital after WWII with a Silver Star but no memory. The Doc tells him his amnesia is "organic" and that the piece of shrapnel in his head has permanently erased his past. The Doc suggests that he attempt to piece his life together by returning to familiar surroundings. His enlistment hometown was L.A., maybe if he goes home he will run into someone who knew him. Eddie buys it. We buy it. Yes, a chance. A once upon a time like big dream, about how, just out of plain crazy **** dumb luck, he'll walk around in The City of Angels and will run into somebody he knows. Then, maybe that person will lead him to another, and then that person to yet another and he'll happily put together his story piece by piece. He figures it's gonna be hard, it's gonna take time. He diligently studies a pamphlet about Los Angeles riding the train on the way down. L.A. Yo. The friggin minute he steps out of Union Station he's pinched by the cops. They are there looking for somebody else, and look who drops into their laps. He's picked up and hauled down to the police station. They know who you are, Eddie. Sgt. Barrett (John Doucette) and Lt. Joe Williams (Rhys Williams) At the station Eddie Rice finds out he's Eddie Riccardi. Foregedboudit, Eddie's gotta be really scrambled in the head. He can't even remember that he was Italian. From the cops file he reads that he worked with a sort of Southern California hillbilly hood/mob boss Vince Alexander (Sonny Tufts), whom he framed before he joined the Army and disappeared into WWII. He also finds out he was married to B-Girl (Nina) Ellen Drew, who also has mob connections. She is working in an illegal gambling parlor, she oversees the girls, always on the lookout for those with new "talents." Thanks to the MPPC we can allow our wildest imagination figure out what that meant, lol. Caught between the cops and the mob, Payne eventually wakes up in a car with a gun in his hand, a dead cop in the seat next to him, and a siren in the distance is getting louder. Just before the tipped off police arrive, Eddie scrambles out into the night. This Film is a gem. Alton's cinematography is extremely dark and claustrophobic and fits the subject matter well, a feast for Noir eyes with a nice juxtaposition of studio set & seedy location shots that make a fine example of the noir aesthetic. The large and varied cast actually enhances the amnesia angle to the story since minor character actors flicker for a few moments of screen time out of the shadows and then are gone, and just like Eddie, you don't know whether they are a part of Eddie's past life or not. Noirsville Alton's stylistic cinematography A Western Swing Bar Like a lit stick of dynamite mad dog (Sonny Tufts) Payne plays a convincing amnesia victim, Drew is good as his ex wife, but Sonny Tufts as the mob boss is excellent, he is very convincing as an unhinged, wild eyed, mad dog, barely in control when angered, hood. He should have been in more Film Noir, his performance here is both impressive and very memorable. He spits, snarls, and I wouldn't be surprised if he bit, actually after checking his bio, he does bite. "In 1949 he had been found drunk on a Hollywood sidewalk. In 1950 he was sued by two women for allegedly biting each of them in the thigh." (IMDb mini bio) This film may also have the distinction of being one of the only Film Noir to feature some Western Swing its diegetic soundtrack. The screencaps are from the Geneon DVD, it's cheap, adequate but featureless, still a personal 9/10 for me. Full review with more screencaps here: https://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-crooked-way-1949-most-graphic-noir.html

Ha! Just found another Noir Alley "cat," The Crooked Way has Petey (Percy Helton) with a pet cat that gets into the action at the end.

I'm kind of guilty of this, more because I've overlooked them through the years. I grew up in the fifties, and was really inundated at a young age with Westerns and TV Westerns, there were a lot of Westerns on 50s prime time TV, also Laurel & Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Little Rascals/Our Gang, a lot of Million Dollar Movies, Chiller Theater, Horror Films, Gangster Films, I saw all the Tennessee Williams adaptations on film and also those on the Playhouse theater type shows, Screwball Comedies, and Sword & Sandal Epics a lot of Hercules and Machiste films. Film Noir was barely defined back then, they were probably just labeled Crime Films if some of these films were on early TV they would have probably been on late night. I just don't remember them. I do remember The Maltese Falcon, and Key Largo. You've seen a lot of films TCM shows on their regular rotation many times after watching TCM for 15+ years, so I particularly watch for possible noir. I've seen quite a few and been trying to let other similar fans know when I come across a film that got lost in the shuffle. Another strong point for Noirs is that at the end of the 40s more and more location shooting was done and a lot of these at least New York locations were places familiar to me as a kid growing up in New York and some are still around, some like the el exist only in Noir now, so seeing these films is like a time machine to my past. Now a lot of these films are available if you search for them, Youtube, film libraries, archives, and under their foreign titles occasionally. Before Film Noir I went on a binge of Westerns, a lot of Westerns. what I discovered with them was that out of the roughly 3,000 + about 3% are top notch about 100 then the quality drops off fast. The same % with Spaghetti Westerns, out of 600 +/- of those about 18 are are top notch. It may be the same with Musicals, War Movies, Screwball Comedies, Comedies, etc., I'm not an aficionado of those like the others 3% may be a sort of benchmark.

Dumps: Carol Baker's NYC walk up in Something Wild Isabella Rossellini's dump in Blue Velvet Paul Stewart and Adele Jergens' dive in Edge Of Doom Bennie's flop in Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia Frederic Forrest's dump in Hammett De Lux Claude Rain's digs in The Unsuspected The Sternwood mansion The Big Sleep (1978) Spaceship house in Body Double

The American Side (2016) Neo Noir Niagara Redux Buffalo, what was at one time our Frontier, analogous to The Stick's or The Wild West. It's the capital of the "other" New York. Upstate. "The Queen City" it spawned "daredevils," and pioneered steam powered grain elevators, and what could be a more iconic symbol of The Great American Fly-Over Country. You could probably say Buffalo is the prototype typical Mid Western/Great Lake, U.S. city. Greg Stuhr and Jenna Rickers script works into The American Side, in a similar fashion to Robert Towne's Chinatown L.A. water wars some Queen City historical atmosphere. In this scenario the early 1900s hydropower, the electrical invention history of genius Nikola Tesla, Buffalo and Niagara Falls is woven into a tale that bridges to the 21st century. This happens in the form of the missing pages of Tesla's notebook which may contain valuable inventions, or of those left unfinished, or just hinted at i.e. free energy systems, invisibility, death rays, etc. The writers, using the locals around the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area including the Canadian Side of 2.25 million, create another sort of Sin City universe, a Northern version of say El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, only instead of Mexicans and more Southern neighbors we have a completely different mix nationalities clustered along the Northern border. The script also nicely incorporates some ironic hardboiled humor into the dialog. The American Side is a good example of what can be accomplished in an fly over country production. It's nice to see the the middle of the country again in a Noir with some cinematic memory. Greg Stuhr carries most of the load, he impressed, with the rest of the cast putting in good but pretty much extended cameos of various lengths, one standout was Norm Sham who stole a couple of scenes. For Noir & Detective enthusiasts it's a winner. Screencaps are from the Sony Pictures 2016 DVD. Almost a low rent Chinatown. 7/10 Full review with some screencaps in Film Noir/Gangster and with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-american-side-2016-neo-noir-niagara.html

The American Side (2016) Neo Noir Niagara Redux "There are three sides to every story... the truth, the lie, and the American side." Directed by Jenna Ricker, written by Greg Stuhr and Jenna Ricker. Cinematography by Frank Barrera, and Music by David Shire. The film stars Greg Stuhr as Private Detective Charlie Paczynski, Camilla Belle as Emily Chase, Alicja Bachleda-Curuś as Nikki Meeker, Matthew Broderick (Glory (1989), Manchester By The Sea (2016) as Borden Chase, Janeane Garofalo (Dogma (1999), as Agent Barry, Robert Forster (Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Jackie Brown (1997), Mulholland Drive(2001), Breaking Bad TV Series (2008–2013), Too Late (2015), Twin Peaks TV Series (2017– )) as Sterling Whitmore, Grant Shaud (Wall Street (1987)) as The Professor, Robert Vaughn (cameo) (Mike Hammer TV Series (1958–1959), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. TV Series (1964–1968), Bullitt(1968)), Harris Yulin ('Doc' (1971), Night Moves (1975), Scarface (1983), Narrow Margin(1990)) and Joe Grifasi (The Deer Hunter (1978), Matewan (1987), Ironweed (1987), Ironweed (1987), Auto Focus (2002), ) as The Serb, Norm Sham as Maguire the Detective, and Kelsey Siepser as Kat the stripper/confidence gal. Buffalo, what was at one time our Frontier, analogous to The Stick's or The Wild West. It's the capital of the "other" New York. Upstate. "The Queen City" it spawned "daredevils," and pioneered steam powered grain elevators, and what could be a more iconic symbol of The Great American Fly-Over Country. You could probably say Buffalo is the prototype typical Mid Western/Great Lake, U.S. city. Greg Stuhr and Jenna Rickers script works into The American Side, in a similar fashion to Robert Towne's Chinatown L.A. water wars some Queen City historical atmosphere. In this scenario the early 1900s hydropower, the electrical invention history of genius Nikola Tesla, Buffalo and Niagara Falls is woven into a tale that bridges to the 21st century. This happens in the form of the missing pages of Tesla's notebook which may contain valuable inventions, or of those left unfinished, or just hinted at i.e. free energy systems, invisibility, death rays, etc. Who is Nikola Tesla?, a genius pioneer of electrical technology and a world-class eccentric. Who, as D.A.R.P.A. Agent Barry in the film, puts it "you could say invented the 20th Century.... When people were getting around on horseback Tesla envisioned a device so small that it could fit into your pocket it would let you check the news, or the stock market or talk to anyone anywhere in the world" sound familiar? He was a dreamer of ideas though, rather than a builder. A nice opening montage traces part of this timeline. The writers, using the locals around the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area including the Canadian Side of 2.25 million, create another sort of Sin City universe, a Northern version of say El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, only instead of Mexicans and more Southern neighbors we have a completely different mix nationalities clustered along the Northern border. "The most intriguing of Tesla’s inventions are the ones that got away. Visitors to the Tesla Museum in Colorado Springs are told a story reminiscent of UFO conspiracy tales: In a raid on his house immediately after his death, government agents seized all of Tesla’s apparatus — some 85 trunks full — either because timid bureaucrats felt the world wasn’t ready for the wonders of Tesla technology or for more sinister reasons. Exactly what all this top-secret Tesla technology may be isn’t known, but some of it, so goes the story, may make time travel possible." (Skeptical Inquirer 1994) The script also nicely incorporates some ironic hardboiled humor into the dialog. Paczynski Charlie Paczynski (Stuhr) The only P.I. in the phonebook, a retro, scruffy, looking Charlie Paczynski, is playing pinball in a dive bar. He's Polish. A perpetual cigarette dangling. He drives a '69 "monkey poop brown" Dart Swinger. He's waiting for his mark. Like the Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly, Charlie is a "bedroom dick", a "window peeper." Like Mike and Velda, Charlie and a stripper named Kat are hooking and scamming marks, Kat tipping Charlie so that be there to take photographs of compromising positions. Charlie contacts the husband, and claims he's working for the wife, tells the mark that the wife hasn't seen them, but that she paid $1000 for them. The mark in this case a Professor can buy the photos and himself off the hook. Nice racket. Apparently college professors and top electrical engineering technologists, on the Eastern Rim of the Midwest, go to Buffalo/Niagara Falls for their quota of boobage. When Kat gets assassinated in a carnival parking lot while Charlie is there to shoot some new blackmail images, everything goes down a rat hole of intrigue to Noirsville involving pages from Tesla's notebook of inventions, Serbian foreign agents, competitive energy czars, The F.B.I., and an obscure U.S. agency called D.A.R.P.A., Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. The film has got an excellently convoluted plot that homages a bit of Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and visually revisits Niagara (1953). Two running gags poke fun at Paczynski's penchant for constantly sucking a tar bar, and the fact that private detectives still exist. Maguire (a police detective): Get the hell out of here. Charlie: You got the road jammed up. Maguire: You're a long way from Polonia. Charlie: Working a missing persons case. Maguire: You couldn't find a hole in a donut. Charlie (pointing to Maguire's cigarettes): Can I get one of those? Maguire (handing Charlie his pack): No. Charlie: Male or female? Maguire: The jumper is male. Charlie: Got a light? Maguire: This is the season, the place is a magnet, honeymoons and suicides. Charlie: What's the difference? Maguire: Ha! You should take that routine to Vegas. I'll escort you to the airport. Charlie: I told you, I've got a job and I've already found the guy. Some nut out of Pittsburg name of Soberin. Maguire: Which one of these maroons put you up to it? Charlie: I don't get it? Maguire: Soberin, (a stretcher goes by with a covered body) you can help tuck him in. Noirsville Charlie & Sterling Whitmore (Robert Forster) Maguire:What would you do if I was in your shoes Charlie? Charlie: I'd burn my socks. The Silver Haired Man (Robert Vaughn) Silver-Haired Man: Everyone looks the same in a suit, like a rat. After giving Charlie tons of info. Charlie asks him something specific, Silver-Haired Man: How should I know, I don't go nosing around in other people's business. More P.I. Charlie Paczynski quotes: Charlie: I don't mind getting paid for somebody I'm already looking for. Emily: I'm not paying you to look for him, I'm paying you to find him. Security Guard: No, no, no, no, no, you just don't walk up here. Charlie: What do we do? Security Guard: Well if we're lucky we schedule an appointment. Charlie: Appointments are for assholes... you probably make them all the time. Charlie: That's a gene pool screaming for chlorine. The American Side is a good example of what can be accomplished in an fly over country production. It's nice to see the the middle of the country again in a Noir with some cinematic memory. Greg Stuhr carries most of the load, he impressed, with the rest of the cast putting in good but pretty much extended cameos of various lengths, one standout was Norm Sham who stole a couple of scenes. For Noir & Detective enthusiasts it's a winner. Screencaps are from the Sony Pictures 2016 DVD. Almost a low rent Chinatown. 7/10 Full review with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-american-side-2016-neo-noir-niagara.html

The original ending would have been way noir-er, though. Would have overcome its lack of great visuals.

A pretty p-poor bio for Hadda Brooks on IMDb.

re: In A Lonely Place It's a good Hollywood Noir, and about the same Hollywood sleaze balls, and tragic figures, we got around today, only back then they were giving us classy crap but now they are giving us mostly, just the crap. I see it similar to A Streetcar Named Desire, it's the dark side of life, an early psychological noir, one of the strands Noir unwinded into after the demise of the glue of the MPPC. One is as Noir as the other. And Streetcar is much more stylistic visually "I told my story better." Another nice classic line.

Eddie sells it pretty hard, don't he?

R.I.P.

It's a drama, you got to take it with a grain of salt, like Ben Hur, The Robe, Barabas, The Last days of Pompeii, it's not a documentary, I'll cut it some slack. It would really be hard to determine what she may have come up with if all her work was destroyed, no? Michael Deakin wrote in his 2007 book Hypatia of Alexandria. "...Hypatia has become a symbol for feminists, a martyr to pagans and atheists and a character in fiction. Neither paganism nor scholarship died in Alexandria with Hypatia, but they certainly took a blow. “Almost alone, virtually the last academic, she stood for intellectual values, for rigorous mathematics, ascetic Neoplatonism, the crucial role of the mind, and the voice of temperance and moderation in civic life,” Deakin wrote. She may have been a victim of religious fanaticism, but Hypatia remains an inspiration even in modern times."

Agora (2009) A great movie you probably never heard of. A historical drama set in Alexandria, 391 AD, Roman Egypt. In 380 AD Emperor Theodosius I, made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD. The (rebuilt) Library of Alexandria repository of the civilized world's knowledge. Hypatia teaches astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. She was, the world’s leading mathematician and astronomer, at the time, the only woman for whom such claim can be made. Her student Orestes is in love with her as is her slave Davus (both Christians BTW). As the city's Christians gain more and more power the old ways and institutions crumble. Twenty years later, Orestes is now the city's Roman prefect, he is having problems keeping Cyril and his followers, who are now zealously beginning to persecute both Jews and non believing pagans, in check. They storm the Library of Alexandria and smash/burn the accumulated knowledge/art of the ages. Hypatia has no interest in faith, she is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and trying to unlock the mysteries of the movement of the celestial bodies. For this she gets branded a witch and murdered. (Hypatia was hunted down and kidnapped by a magistrate called Peter and his fellow Christians and taken to the church at Caesareum. Brutally, she was stripped of her clothes and beaten with tiles or oyster shells, supposedly skinned alive with those very same oyster shells. Then, Hypatia was either ripped to shreds or dragged through the streets until she died.) Don't worry, the film doesn't go The Passion of the Christ on this, though it probably should have. Convert or be branded witches, the early Christians were like the Taliban taking over Afghanistan persecuting non believers and destroying antiquities. No wonder we went through The Dark Ages, a refreshing counterpoint to all of Hollywood's sort of whitewashed ad nauseam Christocentric Roman Empire epics. Here is the other side of the story albeit it compresses roughly 100 years of religious turmoil into about 20. A Spanish film (In English) directed by Alejandro Amenábar, Writers: Alejandro Amenábar, Mateo Gil, and Stars: Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac. 9/10 http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/living-mans-world-untimely-brutal-death-hypatia-002328 Available on Netflix.

I've seen it on some lists

Noir Alley Cats Just a sidebar, but I was re-watching The Asphalt Jungle last night, and in the Gus Minissi's Lunch Counter (James Whitmore) segment there is a sequence with a cat. So that got me thinking about how many cats were featured in Film Noir. The poor kitty in The Postman Always Rings Twice came to mind, and as I'm typing I just remembered the cat in This Gun for Hire. I'm sure there are a few more. Lets see how many we can remember.

Thanks

.....and in regards, concerning the visuals, to my last post I prefer John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle to The Maltese Falcon

I agree, and for me, I don't get the great Visuals, from In A Lonely Place either. I mean hell, Film Noir sort of got noticed for its dark visual style and stories. It's the same reason I prefer I Wake Up Screaming (what a great title too boot) to The Maltese Falcon.

That was funny

Lawrence has 4 entries, Asphalt Jungle, The Black Hand, I Walk Alone, and Jigsaw. You're right Calleia is in 6, Cry Tough, Deadline At Dawn, The Glass Key, Lured, Touch Of Evil, and Gilda. Gilda is in the first Index of the 25 reviews so I missed it.

Yea, fixed it below. There are going to be some fuzzy entries in these lists. Its subjective, various life experiences tunes us all differently to the material. Some noirs resonate with some others don't.

OK adjusted the list to include The Big Combo. but the cut off is 1960 so it includes Edmond O'Brien's The 3rd Voice. There are noirs beyond but they are morphing into Neo Noir with the weakening of the Motion Picture Production Code.* Humphrey Bogart (15) The Big Sleep Conflict Dark Passage Dead Reckoning The Desperate Hours The Enforcer The Harder They Fall High Sierra In A Lonely Place Key Largo Knock On Any Door The Maltese Falcon Sirocco They Drive By Night The Two Mrs. Carrolls Richard Conte (15) The Blue Gardinia Call Northside 777 Cry Of The City Highway Dragnet Hollywood Story House Of Strangers New York Confidential The Raging Tide The Sleeping City Somewhere In The Night The Spider Thieves Highway Under The Gun Whirlpool The Big Combo Raymond Burr (13) Abandoned Affair In Havana The Blue Gardinia Crime Of Passion A Cry In The Night Desperate His Kind Of Woman The Pitfall A Place In The Sun Please Murder Me Raw Deal Red Light Ruthless Edmund O'Brien (13) Backfire Between Midnight and Dawn A Cry In The Night A Double Life The Hitch-Hiker Man In The Dark 711 Ocean Drive Shield For Murder The Turning Point Two Of A Kind The Web White Heat The 3rd Voice The rest Elisha Cook Jr. (12) Zachery Scott (12) Barry Sullivan (12) Edward G. Robinson (11) Robert Ryan (11) Howard Duff (10) Dan Duryea (10) Charles McGraw (10) George Sanders (10) Henry Morgan (9) George Raft (9) Wallace Ford (9) Thomas Gomez (9) Arthur Kennedy (8) John Garfield (8) Robert Mitchum (8) Sterling Hayden (8) Richard Widmark (8) William Bendix (8) Lee J. Cobb (8) Joseph Cotten (8) Broderick Crawford (8) John Hodiak (8) John McIntire (8) Steve Cochran (7) William Conrad (7) Dane Clark (7) Alan Ladd (7) Steven McNally (7) Lloyd Nolan (7) Peter Lorry (7) Howard daSilva (7) Ted de Corsia (7) Sydney Greenstreet (7) Glen Ford (7) Paul Stewart (7) Albert Decker (7) Regis Toomey (7) Ed Begley (7) John Hoyt (7) Note Dana Andrews, Dick Powell, Burt Lancaster, Richard Basehart, Leo G. Carroll, Brian Donlevy, John Ireland, Frank Lovejoy, Victor Mature, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Art Smith, William Tallman, Joseph Calleia, and quite a few others have 6 or less * Beyond 1960 as jamesjazzguitar states there are more Noirs, Glen Ford is in The Money Trap (1965) with Rita Hayworth BTW, and Experiment in Terror (1962). Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages (1961) is pretty Noir, and so is Requiem For A Heavyweight (1962) which would give Anthony Quinn another and also Mickey Rooney, Steve Cochran is in The Beat Generation (1959) so that would give him 8 in the above list, Selby missed that one, but he's also in another Noir Tell me In The Sunshine (1965). Lloyd Nolan is in Girl of the Night (1960) so he should get eight also.

Selby lists 5

He/s equally good in Naked City and Crime Wave

Selby's book is divided into two sections the first has 25 Noirs with in depth reviews the second section lists the 490 Noirs and they each have their own short blurb but each section has it's own separate index of actors director etc., but they missed The Big Combo in the second index, I didn't cross check so including that gives Conte 15 and Undercurrent is also in the first 25 index and was missed so Bogart has 16. You are right. ps The Spider was on Youtube it also stars Anne Savage but unfortunately she doesn't last long .